women

In the middle of life chaos recently, I heard this beautiful song that hit me instantly because I could relate. “Here’s to the brokens… The misfits and wannabes… The part of you that’s just like me…” The lyrics floated out of my speakers and right into my heart. Music has always been a big thing for me and I can feel intensely for songs I can’t even personally relate to. These days though, life has been….different, full, busy, emotional, so when a song comes on that I CAN relate to, then I feel even more intensely. “The wildflowers and holier than thou’s… The diamonds that are never gonna leave the rough… The rolling stones that are always stuck… The all-nighters and the lost I’ve never found…” The song continued as my very full heart started to do backflips of emotion as I heard every note. Driving to work, I let the song serenade me. “God bless this mess… If this is as good as it’s gonna get… I’m gonna hold you like I know it’s gonna be okay again… I got a hurricane in my heart… Keeps on rattling the gooder part… And honestly, I’m just an honest wreck… But I’m trying my best… God bless this mess, oh, God bless this mess.”

What hardworking single mom with a life full of mistakes couldn’t relate to this?! As of late, the struggles have been intense. I had begun to be filled with misery going to my day job every day. I was filled with dread every morning walking through the door, but also felt trapped for so many reasons. The inner struggle over what to do was strangling me. I felt like a failure for being unable to make it work, for being unable to make any of the others in the office be able to understand my heart, for beginning to resent how set apart I was. I was suffocating.

On top of the work issues, the ongoing disconnect from my family has been very difficult for me to accept and make peace with. Not only has there been zero contact for a couple months now, but social media has rubbed salt into the wound in ways I didn’t expect. I’ll take an order of insult to injury please! I miss them. I especially miss my sister whom I have felt was my only ally ever with them. It’s been painful. I have felt this alone very few times in my life.

“Here’s to the waiting… All the waiting that we have to do… The dreams we make that never come true… And all the hurting that comes without warning… Here’s to the view from the tile of the bathroom floor… Ain’t we all been there before… And the hell bent sun that’s gonna come up the next morning…”

Amidst many other stressors, hurts, and normal life issues, I have just felt burdened. I have so much on my plate and so little in the way of relief, support, and resources. Music has been one of my biggest comforts. So, listening to this song, I decided; screw it. I quit. I wrote a short and sweet email and turned in my resignation from the job that I once loved, but ended up despising. Immediate relief.

I don’t really know what happens from here, but one thing I know, I’ll keep asking for God to bless this mess.

“Most the time I forget to pray… But when I close my eyes, I just say… God bless this mess…”

The link is below. Check it out as this post doesn’t do the beauty of the song justice. *I do not own the music, nor did I make the video*

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love. I’ve been thinking not just about romantic love, but many kinds. . . the love between family, the love a mother is supposed to have for her children, and even self-love. You see, my life has definitely lacked love in places where there should have been much, much more.

I was a child bride and had a husband that loved drugs and alcohol, he loved humiliating me and hurting me, but he didn’t love me. I have a family that isn’t close and doesn’t show love at all towards one another. Way more “f**k you’s” are thrown out between each other than “I love you’s.” Hugs don’t happen with my family, and support is virtually non-existent. The biggest pain with that is that there is more love and support shown for some of us from my mother than others. Growing up feeling like I was somehow flawed (because I must be if my own mother can’t like me but clearly loves my siblings, right?!) has made me not love myself. If the easiest love to come in the world (the love of a mother for her child) isn’t there, and then my own husband couldn’t love me, then I must be truly broken and unlovable. That was my thinking for a long time anyway.

I’ve written several times about how women are harsh to judge and judge ourselves more than anyone else. We have constant media in our faces telling us we aren’t good enough, pretty enough, slim enough. It makes self-love incredibly difficult. Then, when you add in abusive people, absent or hurtful parents, or other issues and incidences that cause pain, self-love becomes even harder.

For me, I had the lack of bonding with my mother as my foundation in life. Then, I got married as a teen and had 4 children back to back with an abusive man. I didn’t take good care of myself through those hard times in my life (thank you, depression), and so of course, I gained a ton of baby weight and didn’t lose it. I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have any family there for me, and I was living through an abusive marriage with no idea that I deserved any better. I did not love me. In fact, I didn’t just not love myself, I downright hated myself.

Now, we can fast forward several years where I have been away from that man for a long time, have lost some of that weight, have made many achievements and advancements in life, and had much personal growth. I’ve struggled still with self-love though. I’ve struggled feeling worthy, and as I’ve recently had a falling out with my family and have endured some other tough events, I’ve been thinking even more about love.

I realized recently that I’ve spent a long time hating myself. I’ve hated my tender heart, I’ve hated my body and the weight I’ve struggled with since I started having children almost 18 years ago, I’ve hated how easily I cry, I’ve hated my lack of self-control in so many areas, and the list goes on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked my face in the mirror and told myself ugly, hateful things because I felt I deserved it. If I exercised, I would think those horrible things to myself out of frustration that I ever let my body get this out of control. I just have been truly disgusted with myself, and so I punished myself with hate.

Well, several days ago, I suddenly had an epiphany. I’ve battled my weight for a long time. I’ve also battled many emotional issues for a long time. While I have continued to try to fight against these issues, I’ve tried using the same methods and with the same self-loathing I have always had. What’s that saying about insanity…trying the same way over and over again while expecting different results? That’s what I have been doing. I have decided that no matter what is going on with my family, no matter what man I do or don’t have in my life, and no matter how my body looks, I need to love myself anyway. No matter what, I am deserving of self-love. So now, as I do my daily squats, I’m telling myself in my head, “Look at you go! One. Good job getting active! Two. You are beautiful! Three. You deserve love! Four. Look at you empowering yourself! Five. . .” You get the idea.

If hating myself has gotten me nowhere, then there’s an entire world of possibilities if I love myself instead. It’s been easy to be negative for a long time, so I’m not going to assume that it’s suddenly going to be much easier to be kind to myself, but I can promise that I’m going to keep trying. I am worthy of that much.

This new journey of self-love is important because it’s not only for me, it’s for my children, for my friends, for my coworkers, and for everyone else around me. The better I feel inside, the better mom, friend, and employee I can be. It’s a win for everyone. So, here’s to my new journey. . .

I’ve sat down at the computer and written so many times about how I have a tender heart. It’s a recurring theme because it’s such a huge part of who I am, and my life is impacted by it. I wrote on Facebook about how you can’t expect others to treat you as you would them because it will sting your heart over and over. This is a personal lesson I’ve had to deal with so many times, and yet, I never seem to be able to truly learn.

As I listen to some bluesy country right now, sitting here with my laptop and cup of coffee on a very snowy day, I can’t help but think about this tender heart of mine again. I’ve said it many times, but I’ve been through a lot these last 5 months, and the blows keep coming. This is the hardest winter I’ve ever endured in my entire life. As we’ve had extreme cold temps and I’ve struggled to keep my house heated, I go to bed every night in a cold room with doubled blankets and the hope that I never have to feel like this again once this season is over.

I don’t know if it’s a weakness or a strength or a little bit of both, but I seem to be incapable of shutting my heart off. No matter how many times I’ve been stung, I always feel hope. I always have faith. I always wake up each day feeling renewed and looking forward to my future. Some days I get knocked backwards, but it’s never permanent. It’s just who I am and I can’t change it. Because of this, my plea is this; please don’t lead others on. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t string others along for whatever twisted comfort it brings you. Don’t keep someone close that you know is more emotionally invested than you are. Be honest, be up front, and be kind, because people like me are so easily emotionally destroyed by the games many barely give a second thought to.

I’ve been hurt by carelessness more times than I can count. Each time, I wipe my own tears and gather the broken pieces of my heart by my own strength, but I also wish that others knew how much of an impact it has. While I once again pick myself up and dust myself off, I take comfort in knowing that there will eventually come a day where I understand why it’s hurt so much up to this point. Until I get to that day, I’ll keep being here for myself, I’ll keep writing, and I’ll keep feeling big because it’s the only thing I know how to do. I know that eventually, there will be a man in my life is going to be so happy that I have the heart that I do and is going to cherish it. Maybe I’ve met him already, maybe he’s going to read this, and maybe not, but I’m comforted by faith and will patiently wait. Big hearts love the best, and someday, this heart of mine is going to bless someone more than he ever knew possible. I’ll be falling asleep tonight with that peace.

You see, for months, I’ve been healing slowly, one piece at a time. A little more every day my heart has formed scars where scabs once where. Every day, my soul has been bleeding less and less for him. Until today when I realized. . .it’s done.

It’s been months of tears, anger, more tears, and more intense anger. I’ve cried, screamed, sobbed, made poor choices, and repeated the cycle. But now, I get to sit and write this blog about finally being here.

* * *

I sat down and wrote those words several weeks ago, and then my computer died. My life is ~that~ busy. It took me probably about a month to find my laptop charger, have the time, and have the motivation to sit down and write at the end of a hectic day. In that time, I’ve thought of this blog every single day. Not only did I feel an intense desire to just write, I had so many thoughts I wanted to get out. I also wanted to get this blog out and then close that chapter for the rest of my life. And as always, I feel this crazy need to purge.

When I had this revelation, I was driving in the dark on my commute home from my day job. What started out as drive time that I hated when I first got this job has turned into “me time” and cherished. During this drive home every night, I let my mind wander to wherever it wants to go. This has not always been a good thing. I can’t even begin to guess at how many of those drives home, my mind has gone to “him” or our breakup. I’d always felt this was a waste of valuable time, emotion, and energy, but now. . .now I feel like this was constructive.

I took months to process. To mull over every single aspect of every area of our relationship and our relationship’s demise. The in’s and the out’s and the up’s and the down’s. And in all of that time spent turning it over in my mind, I really, truly processed. In processing, I finally healed.

I came upon this revelation because of a song. Those that know me know that I am big into music and it’s always on. I had a love-hate relationship with music after my breakup though because so much hurt and tore me up to hear. That pain got easier each day, and I pushed through because there was no way I was going to let a man ruin music for me. There were definitely songs I avoided at times and even other times I intentionally listened to songs I knew would hurt, all as a part of my grieving process.

That day that I was driving though, I realized something. Those painful songs were no longer painful. I realized that no songs were painful anymore for me when it comes to him. I realized, when I can listen to any song in the world now without getting choked up at all, that’s when I know I’m finally over him.

In that healing, I also realized that I was no longer angry. The anger I’d felt for months was suddenly gone without a trace. I no longer feel any strong emotion connected to him. So now, I can reflect on happy memories with a smile and let the not so great memories go. I don’t feel upset anymore. I don’t feel animosity towards him, his family that doesn’t like me, or his girlfriend. I wish nothing but happiness for him and his children. I hope that his girlfriend is everything that he and his children need, because I still care and want them all to be happy.

For me, I was recently talking with a friend about how difficult life has been since August. For one, I’m so busy that I feel like it was August, and then I blinked, and now it’s suddenly January. For two, it’s been a hard winter. It’s been extremely cold here this year and my house feels a lot cold and a little lonely. On the flip side of that though, for the first time in months, I realized I was picturing a future again. I told a different friend a few months ago that I can’t picture the next season in my life at all, both figuratively and literally. So for me to suddenly be picturing spring. . .that’s a pretty big deal. I told her that I feel like I’m meant to endure this long, cold winter, but that my personal life is going to bloom when spring blooms outside. I don’t know why I feel this way, just a gut feeling I suppose, but it’s a new faith that has me smiling these days.

I don’t know what is around the corner for me next in life, but what I do know is that I’m going to keep fighting, I’m going to keep working, and I’m going to keep listening to music—for she is my therapist. And with music, this chapter is finally closed for good.

This is the final chapter of my history with B. If you wish to read the entire story of the end in order, the links are:

The weak hunt the wounded–what a strong and true statement! I’d love to say I came up with it myself, but it would be a lie. You see, I have this friend that has listened to me vent, cry, and ramble for 2 weeks now. We’ve been the kind of friends to talk over Facebook and the phone for a couple years now (we know each other in real life, but we don’t live near each other anymore), but lately, he’s been one of a small handful that have been supportive, listened, and been there for me over and over and then over again during this time. He’s one of my safe people because I can trust him and there’s no pressure to be anything but me. He’s smart, honest, and witty and makes me laugh when I want to cry. We are very different people though and this allows us to talk about all kinds of life aspects and see each other’s different points of view.

Last night we were discussing dating, sex, friendship, and all other things real, adult life. We were talking about his standards for romantic relationships and mine and how they are different, but then the topic came up about people that prey on the broken. It was completely relevant and something that another friend and I were recently discussing as well. We were talking in reference to how he said that he thinks women have an easier time finding men than men have finding women. I had disagreed and said I felt it was the same for both sexes. He disagreed still and said he didn’t think women knew how hard it was for men. It was friendly banter to kill time and boredom when I had said it must be easy for anyone and how they only have to target someone below them. Then this blog post topic bloomed. He told me how that’s lazy and wrong and gave me that line “the weak hunt the wounded” in his response.

While we were talking about “casual encounters” this actually works all across the board with dating and life in general. In my most broken moments in life, I have attracted the most broken, unstable, predatory, ill-intentioned people. In my strongest, most positive life moments, I’ve attracted the strongest, most positive, stable, well-intentioned people. For whatever reason, hard times can bring the worst people into one’s life.

This is something everyone, especially women, need to be aware of. When one is going through something hard, not coping well, making poor life choices because of the pain, and is easily seen as not having his or her stuff together in life, the creeps will come out of the woodwork, I promise. The predators will come out to hunt you down and they can smell you from a mile away. So in your low moments, guard your heart, because it matters.

While I personally am not a fan of casual sex, my friend is, as are many other people in our society. That’s okay, we’re grown-ups and you’re allowed to make your own choices. But, please be aware. Make sure that you’re not making that choice to fill a broken piece of your heart, because I can assure you that afterwards, that hole you’re trying to fill will not only still not be filled, it’ll likely be bigger. If you’re seeking a partner for casual fun, that’s totally your choice, but remember, the weak hunt the wounded.